A/N: On a mental high from watching the trailer for Star Trek into Darkness, which comes out on my birthday! I'm excited!

Chris,

I thought that you should be the first to know, so I am forwarding this information to you. Share it with who you will.

Lieutenant Mitchell is filing official charges against James Kirk for personal insult resulting from the dismissal from active duty. There will be a trial held upon your return to Earth. And a renewal of the original charges brought against Kirk of allegations of prostitution.

I don't want to see the boy destroyed after he saved us all. I hope this information comes to you quickly enough to be useful.

Rick

-oOo-

Rick,

Thanks for the heads up. I'm pretty sure this is going to tear the kid up. This is the last thing he really needs. Especially since he is having so much trouble adjusting. I'll tell Spock and we'll prepare.

Chris

-oOo-

Spock,

I'm forwarding Admiral Barnett's message to me. Prepare him as best you can, get together what defenses you can, and contact me. I know this is going to be harder than just getting him on the ship and into Starfleet. If there is justice in the universe, Mitchell will die in his sleep before we're in range. But I doubt it.

Pike

-oOo-

Captain,

It seems highly improbably that Lieutenant Mitchell will 'die in his sleep'. That being said, I am grateful that the admiral gave us forewarning before we reached Earth's orbit. I will inform Kirk of the circumstances and see that the proper preparations are under way3.

Spock

-oOo-

Spock was prepared for the worst. The chain of messages sent back and forth between himself and Pike had served nothing more than a highly useless exchange of information both already knew. He brought up the charges on his personal PADD and read through it, the emotions he was trying to bury coming to the forefront of his mind. Not even meditation before this visit could prepare him properly for facing a distraught Jim, and he knew it.

His finger touched the door chime to allow Kirk to know that someone was there to visit. But this was not a social call. Having woken up from his mandatory sleep to the news that Jim would be put through another trial and spent the better part of the next hour preparing himself to approach the human.

The door chime was almost unnaturally loud to Spock, whose Vulcan hearing was sensitive enough to hear everything happening inside the captain's quarters. Right down to the sound of a body hitting the floor hard enough to bruise just before the door opened revealing a half asleep shirtless Jim.

"Spock?" he said groggily, rubbing at his eyes. Moving his arms let Spock see the bruises that peppered his skin. Spock's eidetic memory allowed him to know with certainty which marks had come from which hit. Even the purpling bruises on Jim's arms from trying to catch himself on the platform after the space jump that Spock hadn't witnessed were clearly defined and the Vulcan knew where they had come from. "What do you need?"

Of course the memory of Vulcan was there, ever present and always hurting. He pushed it down repeatedly, and had succeeded when he was concentrating on staying on his feet and not letting anything show to Jim. But here, now, when he had visual proof of the damage done already to his captain, he didn't want one more thing to hurt Jim. Especially when he was feeling the loss of Spock's home planet just as keenly as any Vulcan on board.

"May I enter?" Spock asked, his tone even as ever. Those blue eyes snapped up to his own, the expression unmistakeably one of suspicion. "I am the unfortunate bearer of bad news."

Jim stepped back and gestured for Spock to enter, letting the door slide shut after the Vulcan was all the way through. "What's this about, Spock? Had to have been important for you to risk Bones' hypos."

For possibly the first time in his life, Spock was at a loss for words. He didn't know where to start, so he stood there for long enough to cause Jim to head back into the room and open one of the closets to pull out a sleep shirt.

"Come on, Spock. You're making me nervous. Just say it."

"Captain...Jim..." Spock turned to face him but couldn't look at his face. "Lieutenant Mitchell is filling official charges against you for removing him from the active duty roster."

Whatever Jim was expecting, it clearly wasn't this. His complexion washed out and Spock took a step forward for fear that he was about to pass out. Jim blinked a few times, staring at the hands held out to him.

"He's filling charges?" he asked, moving to a chair and sitting hard. Spock pulled a chair over and sat within touching distance. "I don't understand. I never touched the duty roster."

"That was me," Spock admitted. Part of him wanted to crawl into his bunk and let this wash over, never take any of the guilt in the matter. But the simple truth was that Spock was responsible for removing Mitchell from active duty, he was responsible for Pike bringing Jim on board. It was Spock's fault that Jim had been put in this position. "I removed him after we received our orders to return to Earth. I found it unfitting that he be given commendations he did not earn."

"I guess I should thank you for trying," Jim said, his voice sounding resigned. Spock shook his head, but Jim kept talking. "I keep thinking that I want to be anywhere else but here, and that's never been so strong as right now. I don't want to go through that again."

"Jim," Spock interrupted. "You will not be alone this time. You forget, I am a touch telepath. I have already seen into your mind and your memories. I will stand as a witness for you." He put a hand on Jim's knee and felt the human stiffen but not pull away. "And I will also put in an admission to being the one who changed the duty roster. You will not have to face Mitchell again."

"You don't have to do that." Standing and removing himself from Spock's touch, Jim started pacing in the small area around the desk. "I can defend myself."

"I believe the point is that you do not have to." It did occur to Spock that this was another irritating human predisposition of assuming that people didn't actually want to do what they offered. "It will not inconvenience me, on the contrary. It will save me time from having to have your record expunged and have you retested for your position as captain."

Jim paused in his pacing to turn in Spock's direction. "So that's it then," he said with a frown. "You really don't want to be captain."

"I, as well as everyone here, simply wants what is best for Starfleet. And the best for Starfleet is you." Spock stood and walked around the desk so he could be eye to eye with Jim. "My own personal goal is to not lose a friend. I do not have many of them, and I treasure each one."

"Aww," Jim said with mock sincerity. "You treasure me." He gave a snort of disbelief. There was a moment where nothing was said before the captain turned and moved to his desk so he could sit down on the edge. "This isn't a matter of false bravado, Spock. I'm not trying to prove to you that I can handle it on my own. I'm trying to say that I have to handle this alone. It's not exactly something you can help me through."

"I may not be able to help you accept it unless you are willing, however I am certainly able to help you bring justice to one Gary Mitchell," Spock said as reassuringly as he could. "I should allow you to return to sleep. Permission to remain and finish my research while you rest? I can access files quicker from your terminal than my own."

"By all means," Jim said as he turned and headed back to the sleeping area. He rounded the short wall separating the bed from the rest of the room, but poked his head back out after a moment. "Just wake me up if anything else happens."

Spock listened to Jim climb back into bed as he started the console up and took a seat at the captain's desk. That he would even think about going back to sleep knowing that Spock would be in the same room awake was enough to make the Vulcan feel much better about how their relationship was progressing.

Starting by opening his messages again, Spock saw the latest one from Pike with the official reports attached from the hospital when Jim had been admitted for his rape kit. It took a moment of searching before Spock saw it. There was a double over the original, as if someone had gone in and changed things remotely. The official report was that Jim had refused testing. However anyone going into the hospital after such an incident didn't go to simply not be tested.

He had to dig for it, search his best, but he eventually found what he was actually looking for. The original files and the changes were hidden. And conclusively damning for Mitchell. The old files were untraceable, having most of what would give it away being wiped, but Spock did find the code that was used and saved it to his own files so he could use it and compare it to anything else from Mitchell he might find. It was obvious who was behind changing the files, at least to Spock. There was an extremely high (so high that Spock didn't want to calculate it) probability that the changes were orchestrated by Mitchell.

Spock was so focused on his work that the sound of someone padding across the room was lost to him until Jim leaned against the back of the chair to read over his shoulder.

"Where did you find those?" the exhausted human voice sounded in his ear. "The court said they were lost."

"I had to uncover it from layers of codes," he explained. "Someone went through great trouble to hide these records. It is troubling to see."

Jim reached around Spock to bring up the code used. The sudden stiffening of his body told Spock that something was wrong.

"Are these the codes?" Jim asked. Spock only nodded, to which Jim let out a quiet expletive. "Those are my damn codes!"

"They...are?"

"I've searched these files a hundred times," Jim said, standing from his folded position. "I searched for hackers, but I never looked for my own codes. I was looking for the wrong things, using the wrong things. Of course my codes wouldn't show up when I was using the same codes to hack the damned thing!"

Spock turned in the seat so he could look at Jim with a raised brow. "Did you ever show those codes to anyone?"

Jim nodded once. "Mitchell."

To Spock's mind, that explained everything. "You should finish your rest. I will send a message to the necessary people and start the process of righting this wrong."

Although Spock fully expected Jim to turn and head back to bed, the human first did the last thing he expected. Jim put a hand voluntarily on Spock's and squeezed. "Thank you Spock. You don't know what this actually means to me."

"I have a fairly good idea," Spock responded, giving the human a nod. "Get some rest."

-oOo-

Rick,

Some disturbing news has been uncovered by Spock. I'm forwarding the files to you, but I'm afraid that Gary Mitchell was up to a lot more than any of us suspected. I suggest he be put in immediate custody.

As far as that goes, anyone working with Mitchell should be investigated. I don't like how much evidence is against him and that he got off without so much as a warning. There's more to this than we know.

I'm sorry that this has been such a troublesome matter and hope to have it resolved before tomorrow. Will you be at the docking and ceremony to honor our returning heroes? I certainly hope so.

Chris

-oOo-

Gary,

These have been transmitted thus far from Earth to the Enterprise. You need to prepare yourself or run. I'm not going to back a losing horse in this race.

Find yourself a new backer or take care of this. I don't care how you do it, but do it quick. And preferably without a mess that I will have to clean up later.

I may be your uncle, but that family connection is the only thing keeping me from letting this out.

James